"Of course I do, but you must catch me first." And she turnedonce more, and I felt a certain fury within me.

It was written that no one could outclimb Mad Jack. I had writtenit.

I swung my pick and moved like a lizard.

I was near to her a couple of times, but never near enough.

The day's aches began again in my muscles, but I pulled my way upwithout slackening my pace. I realized, faintly, that the camp wasfar below me now, and that I was climbing alone through the dark up astrange slope. But I did not stop. Rather, I hurried, and my breathbegan to come hard in my lungs. I heard her laughter, and it was agoad. Then I came upon a two-inch ledge, and she was moving along it.I followed, around a big bulge of rock to where it ended. Then shewas ninety feet above me, at the top of a smooth pinnacle. It waslike a tapering, branchless tree. How she'd accomplished it, I didn'tknow. I was gasping by then, but I looped my line around it and beganto climb. As I did this, she spoke:

"Don't you ever tire, Whitey? I thought you would have collapsedby now."

I hitched up the line and climbed further.

"You can't make it up here, you know."

"I don't know," I grunted.

"Why do you want so badly to climb here? There are other nicemountains."

"This is the biggest, girl. That's why."

"It can't be done."

"Then why all this bother to discourage me? Why not just let themountain do it?"

As I neared her, she vanished. I made it to the top, where shehad been standing, and I collapsed there.

Then I heard her voice again and turned my head. She was on aledge, perhaps eighty feet away.

"I didn't think you'd make it this far," she said. "You are afool. Good-by, Whitey." She was gone.

I sat there on the pinnacle's tiny top--perhaps four square feet oftop--and I know that I couldn't sleep there, because I'd fall. And Iwas tired.

I recalled my favorite curses and I said them all, but I didn'tfeel any better. I couldn't let myself go to sleep. I looked down.I knew the way was long. I knew she didn't think I could make it.

I began the descent.

The following morning when they shook me, I was still tired. I toldthem the last night's tale, and they didn't believe me. Not untillater in the day, that is, when I detoured us around the bulge andshowed them the pinnacle, standing there like a tapering, branchlesstree, ninety feet in the middle of the air.

We went steadily upward for the next two days. We made slightly underten thousand feet. Then we spent a day hammering and hacking our wayup a great flat face. Six hundred feet of it. Then our way was tothe right and upward. Before long we were ascending the western sideof the mountain. When we broke ninety thousand feet, we stopped tocongratulate ourselves that we had just surpassed the Kasla climb andto remind ourselves that we had not hit the halfway mark. It took usanother two and a half days to do that, and by then the land lay likea map beneath us.

And then, that night, we all saw the creature with the sword.

He came and stood near our camp, and he raised his sword above hishead, and it blazed with such a terrible intensity that I slipped onmy goggles. His voice was all thunder and lightning this time:

"_Get off this mountain!_" he said. "_Now! Turn back! Go down!Depart!_"

And then a shower of stones came down from above and rattled aboutus. Doc tossed his slim, shiny, case, causing it to skim along theground toward the creature.

The light went out, and we were alone.

Doc retrieved his case, took tests, met with the same success asbefore--_i.e._, none. But now at least he didn't think I was some kindof balmy, unless of course he thought we all were.

"Not a very effective guardian," Henry suggested.

"We've a long way to go yet," said Vince, shying a stone throughthe space the creature had occupied. "I don't like it if the thingcan cause a slide."

"That was just a few pebbles," said Stan.

"Yeah, but what if he decided to start them fifty thousand feethigher?"

"Shut up!" said Kelly. "Don't give him any idea. He might belistening."

For some reason, we drew closer together. Doc made each of usdescribe what we had seen, and it appeared that we all had seen thesame thing.

"All right," I said, after we'd finished. "Now you've all seenit, who wants to go back?"

There was silence.

After perhaps half a dozen heartbeats, Henry said, "I want thewhole story. It looks like a good one. I'm willing to take mychances with angry energy creatures to get it."

"I don't know what the thing is," said Kelly. "Maybe it's noenergy creature. Maybe it's something--supernatural--I know what you'llsay, Doc. I'm just telling you how it struck me. If there are suchthings, this seems a good place for them. Point is--whatever it is, Idon't care. I want this mountain. If it could have stopped us, Ithink it would've done it already. Maybe I'm wrong. Maybe it can.Maybe it's laid some trap for us higher up. But I want this mountain.Right now, it means more to me than anything. If I don't go up, I'llspend all my time wondering about it--and then I'll probably come backand try it again some day, when it gets so I can't stand thinkingabout it any more. Only then, maybe the rest of you won't beavailable. Let's face it, we're a good climbing team. Maybe the bestin the business. Probably. If it can be done, I think we can do it."

"I'll second that," said Stan.

"What you said, Kelly," said Mallardi, "about it beingsupernatural--it's funny, because I felt the same thing for a minutewhen I was looking at it. It reminds me of something out of the_Divine Comedy_. If you recall, Purgatory was a mountain. And then Ithought of the angel who guarded the eastern way to Eden. Eden hadgotten moved to the top of Purgatory by Dante--and there was thisangel....Anyhow, I felt almost like I was committing some sin I didn'tknow about by being here. But now that I think it over, a man can'tbe guilty of something he doesn't know is wrong, can he? And I didn'tsee that thing flashing any angel ID card. So I'm willing to go upand see what's on top, unless he comes back with the Tablets of theLaw, with a new one written in at the bottom."

"In Hebrew or Italian?" asked Doc.

"To satisfy you, I suppose they'd have to be drawn up in the formof equations."

"No," he said. "Kidding aside, I felt something funny too, when Isaw and heard it. And we didn't really hear it, you know. It skippedover the senses and got its message right into our brains. If youthink back over our descriptions of what we experienced, we each'heard' different words telling us to go away. If it can communicatea meaning as well as a pyschtranslator, I wonder if it can communicatean emotion, also....You thought of an angel too, didn't you, Whitey?"

"Yes," I said.

"That makes it almost unanimous then, doesn't it?"

Then we all turned to Vince, because he had no Christianbackground at all, having been raised as a Buddhist on Ceylon.

"What were your feelings concerning the thing?" Doc asked him.

"It was a Deva," he said, "which is sort of like an angel, Iguess. I had the impression that every step I took up this mountaingave me enough bad karma to fill a lifetime. Except I haven'tbelieved in it that way since I was a kid. I want to go ahead, up.Even if that feeling was correct, I want to see the top of thismountain."

"So do I," said Doc.

"That makes it unanimous," I said.

"Well, everyone hang onto his angelsbane," said Stan, "and let'ssack out."

"Good idea."

"Only let's spread out a bit," said Doc, "so that anything fallingwon't get all of us together."